The Joys of Being An Art Major

The tree swing on campus= heaven

On Mondays and Wednesdays I have my crazy Art Major days.  I wake up, have my God time, get ready and usually go out the door around 9:30 to skip on over to the Ceramics studio. I work in the studio until 12:20-ish, and then quickly clean up, stop by the art lockers for a supplies switch-off, and then go to Figure Studies 2 until 3:30.

I know what you're thinking.... but Brenna... 9:30-3:30. Do you starve?

And the answer is yes... yes I do. Save for the Lara bar and craisins I eat during break in Figure Studies.

That's besides the point. Today, my Ceramics prof, Loren (who is also the head of the Art Department) called the advanced students ( all three of us) to get in his car so we could drive down to Aardvark to get the glazes we need for the studio. 

--Now hold on a minute and let me explain. The University I go to is a Christian College, so when I say that my prof told us to get in his car, it's not a weird thing. We call these people by their first name, they're more like uncles to us than profs--

So all four of us drive down towards Irvine, and Loren tells us that since we're going with him that we can pick out some new tools!! My friend, Katie, said that it was like a grandpa taking his grand-kids to a toy shop, to which Loren remarked something along the lines of laughing at how old we were calling him. It was silly. 

But I did get new tools! two little little pretty carving tools and a new sponge. Amber and Katie got more, because they're throwers and I'm a hand builder, so I don't really use a lot of fancy tools.

We were late to our Figure Studies 2 class, and we might not be going at all on Wednesday because there's an exhibit on sculpture that all the ceramics classes are going to see. 

Ahhh..... crazy days. I love them. I don't even know if all this made sense, but it was too wonderful of a day (later there was slack-lining and iced mochas) to not write about it. 

I'm being rushed off to dinner, so I'll have to say farewell!!!

-Brenna Kathleen

I've gone down the rabbit hole, and don't plan on climbing back out

Well, I finally saw it. Alice in Wonderland in 3D!

Let me say. BEAUTIFUL!

Alice has always been one of my tippy-top favorite characters of all time. Ever since I was little. And when I was old enough to read the books I fell in love all over again. The poetry in Through The Looking Glass! It's inspired my love of poofy dresses, bottles, cakes, and poetry ( I can even recite the Jabberwocky poem by heart)

Here she is. Alice Liddell. The girl Carroll based the book off of. 

 A sketch of Tim Burton's Alice.

 The costumes (by the amazing Colleen Atwood) are like no other Alice before. I love that the clothes don't grow and shrink with Alice, so she gets dressed in all types of things from fabric scraps to curtains!

Needless to say, when I came out of that movie theater my love for the story, world, and language was again raised from the ashes. I instantly came back and started researching everything I could, mostly dresses I'll admit. I found myself eating up every whimsical blue and white dress I could find

 -an old vintage dress, I forgot where I found it - dress from dELiA's that looks so amazingly similar to Alice's dress in the movies ( I am so tempted to buy this one)- I forgot where I found this one too. poo.

These are amazing dresses I found at Victorian Maiden. Aren't they lovely?

The renewed imagination-ness of Alice has actually come at a good time for me. I've been thinking about my art and where I want to take it. I've found myself holding back in terms of the art I produce for class. I want to come up with a product, so I'm afraid to take chances that may result in a non-product failure. But now I'm going to unleash my imagination. I'm going to let the madness of Alice influence me in the best possible way. 

I may even start to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast as an exercise. 

Send word with the white rabbit if you need to get a message to me,  in the mean time I'll be having tea with the Hatter. 

-Brenna Kathleen

An Explosion of Thoughts and Learnings

This will indeed be a ramble, I can feel it coming. So, brace yourself if you are ready to come with me on this one.

Now, This past week was my University’s Missions Conference. This means that classes are suspended for three days and guest speakers come in and we all attend the sessions and other activities.

I haven’t written on this blog before about my upcoming trip to Germany this summer! I’m going with a team from my school to go teach English to jr. high and high schoolers at a camp in a town in the country, upper east of Germany close to Berlin, and then we’ll be doing other work in Berlin after the camp.

That is mostly what I was doing for the first two days of mission conference. Working for the team at our table, selling my paintings and working on commissions. But that all is beside the point, I’ve been taking in all this information about missions and impacting the world for Christ. So I’ve been thinking how am I to do that? What am I being called to do?

And I thought about theater; I was raised in the theater. My dad has worked there for longer than I have been alive. And for some reason all the people that I’ve become close friends with have been involved in the theatrical world in one way or another. And for the most part, all the careers I’ve though about going into (besides my dream of being a vet to all animals except snakes when I was 6) have had something to do with theater or the media. Actress, Costume Design, Make-up Artist, Working for Disney.

I love being able to create fantasy for the real world. So that’s what I want to do with my life. And I’ve noticed how Godless that area of life is. Television, movies, stage. God is absent in most of it. The sad part is that it’s such a great way to reach people.

A friend was talking a couple weeks ago about how they want to work for theater, and how it’s such a great way to touch people’s lives. I’ve never heard anyone voice an opinion like that before, and I knew that I felt the same way, and that I’ve never really put it into words before.

It’s a great way to impact others lives. And, yes, even if plays aren’t specifically “Christian” they can still have Jesus at the center of them. But what about the people giving the message? I’ve grown up with these people; I know that some of them don’t know God. I’ve gotten glimpses of what other theaters are like, and it can be a scary place. I want to show the love of Jesus with everyone, not just the audience. And think of how much more powerful the performance would be if everyone on stage and behind it knew that the message was and believed it?

I don’t know if that’s exactly what I’ve been called to do. But at this time in my life I’m narrowing down my passions and connecting my past to open up my future. I’m willing to go wherever I am called. But I know that I’ve been given a passion for the arts for a reason. I hope that there is a way that I can use those passions to share Jesus with others.

For now I have to put my passions on the back burner and focus on my education, or else my creative ADD will take over and I’ll never get this degree…


-Brenna Kathleen

Giving Thanks

As I have mentioned before, I spend every morning writing in a journal to God. And part of the system that I write in is the "Thanks" section.

I'm very thankful for so many things

1. My salvation
2. My life
3. My Family
4. My Friends... these two girls included

5. My creativity to imagine and bring to life amazing things

6. My wonderful University that I'm blessed with the opportunity to attend
7. My musical ability, my voice and also my uke (although they're not outstanding, I still love 'em)

8. My background in theater and the fact that I grew up surrounded by such amazing people and experiences.
9.These babies..... thanks Dad, they're not as blue as yours, but I'm pretty sure the recessive gene came from you. I love them

10. SO MUCH MORE!!!

-Brenna Kathleen

Me in a picture

I was browsing fffound, to look for images to inspire me for my assignment in drawing class. I didn't find anything for class really, but I did discover a new amazing artist, and one picture that totally describes me!

 

The artist's name is Kate Sutton. She has an amazing web site, blog, and etsy. 

I LOVE her cuckoo clocks!

Now on to more homework, bleh.

-Brenna Kathleen

Replay.... literally

My amazing roommates and I "accidentally" formed a band when we developed our way to ask our friends to go on GYRAD (get your roommate a date).... you can read about that on our combined blog, First South.

We call this band The Tashes. On account of the fact that all our instruments sport a nice fluffy moustache :]

Anyways, We made our first video!

Go see it HERE! 





Go! :]
-Brenna Kathleen